New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) President Shailesh Chandra on Tuesday said that innovation in the automotive industry must be done within the boundaries of privacy and security for the customers’ data.

In electric vehicles – and even in the traditional ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles – a lot of data flows from the customer to multiple stakeholders in the ecosystem.

“These may be the video feed coming from your dashcam, phone numbers that you are connected within your infotainment system. There’s so much information that the customer is exposed and we as professionals care for the privacy,” he said at an event here.

Chandra, who is also the CEO of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd, said at an OEM level, “we should be very sensitive to the privacy and security and there should be some clear principles”.

“The first principle is that you must make the customer aware and take the consent of what data is being used and what is going to be used in what manner. The second aspect is that we should classify the data,” he said.

Third is very important aspect of how you handle the data, which means that which information is needed to be kept for a longer time and which needed to be terminated fast.

According to Chandra, implementation of these principles can happen only when “you design your systems for privacy, when you design your systems for security and what I mean by that is how you classify (the data).”

Meanwhile, the automobile industry in India registered its best November sales last year, as passenger vehicle (PV) sales increased nearly 19 per cent to 4,12,405 units from the same month last year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data. While three-wheeler sales grew 21.3 per cent to 71,999 units, two-wheeler sales jumped 21.2 per cent to 19,44,475 units.

Industry is optimistic that the continued supportive policy reforms and improved market sentiments, would continue this growth trajectory well into 2026.

–IANS

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